The Latest Medical Adventure

I spent about eight hours in the ER last night/this morning with my third bout of kidney stone pain in ten days. I get to rise at the crack of dawn tomorrow to be a “scheduled walk-in” at the urology clinic because there is a massive stone possibly stuck in my ureter. After some blood work, we learned that my kidney function was not the best, so depending on how things are in the morning, I’ll either get more tests done if I’ve passed the stone or get a stent if I haven’t.

This was probably the worst one I’ve ever had since my first one fifteen years ago. When the nurse gave me morphine in my IV and it neither helped the pain nor made me not care about it, I started to worry. I’ve only had morphine for kidney stone pain once, but it helped the pain and I didn’t mind what was left.

When I went to CT and had to lie on my stomach I was confused; Ian told me that Google said that meant they thought a stone was stuck. Google was right.

Not my imaging

At first the doctor said it was 2.5mm by 5.5mm, but a few hours later, after talking to the urologist, he said the urologist thought it was bigger.

About an hour after the morphine didn’t work, I got Toradol and Zofran. It was another half hour before that kicked in, which was also concerning. The first time I had kidney stones, I got Toradol and felt better before the nurse had the needle in the sharps container.

I thought about How to Die in Oregon. I think if everyone against assisted suicide went through what I did last night, there would be no question. I can’t imagine dealing with constant, intractable pain with no hope for relief. And it’s only been about 24 hours for me.

I don’t want to be too optimistic, but I think my stone has moved some. Hopefully I won’t need a stent tomorrow.